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Definition of race riot in US English:

race riot

noun

A public outbreak of violence between two racial groups in a community.

‘The race riot that year roused a decade of civil and social rights initiatives and gave special urgency to the need for protection from an array of injustice.’

‘During Chicago's 1919 race riot, an Irish gang tried to enlist allies among eastern European immigrants living near the stockyards by scapegoating blacks.’

‘She is about 13 years old, living proof of the tensions that have grown up over decades in Redfern, passing down the generations and exploding into a full-blown race riot.’

‘The area began to look like a war zone as the inhabitants dealt with a race riot and the greed of few landlords who were able to make more money burning down their buildings rather than renting them out.’

‘The last race riot of this type occurred in Detroit in 1943.’

‘White resistance to further expansion, exacerbated by the postwar competition for jobs and rising political tensions, strained racial amity and led to a bloody race riot in 1919.’

‘With the deprivation and grimness of daily life ever more menacing, the race riot of 1935 seemed foreordained.’

‘What are the causes of the race riot that occurred in such a place?’

‘When he rose to power in 1981, the country still bore scars from violent race riots and a long fight against a stubborn communist insurgency.’

‘The violence is the worst since the race riots of 1969, which claimed the lives of hundreds of ethnic Chinese.’

‘The violence was the latest in a wave of race riots in the northern English towns of Burnley, Leeds and Oldham, which all have large Asian communities.’

‘Everyone wanted to stress that it was not a race riot and it was not, in the sense that there was no obvious hostility to any one community.’

‘In response to a Tallahassee race riot in August 1944, the association condemned mob violence and supported the governor and police for quick action in suppressing the violence.’

‘In the past quarter-century, every major race riot in this country has been sparked by a police action against a black person that was widely seen as an excessive use of force.’

‘A major race riot was triggered when a white gang began attacking Asian people at random after a minor disagreement, a jury heard yesterday.’

‘The 1921 race riot was sparked by a confrontation between whites who had gone to Tulsa's courthouse to lynch a black man accused of sexually assaulting a white woman and black men who showed up to stop them.’

‘Many second-generation Muslims are not well integrated into UK society and say they face discrimination and unemployment, especially in smaller cities like Bradford, the site of a race riot.’

‘I describe it as a race riot because I think this is something that has been coming for some time.’